Youth Hymnal 228Open our eyes, Lord,
We want to see Jesus,
To reach out and touch Him,
and say that we love Him.
Open our ears, Lord,
And help us to listen,
Open our eyes, Lord,
We want to see Jesus.
Haha... Praise tha Lord for this hymn... This hymn just came to me after I came out of my bathroom from bathing a while ago... LOL... But anyway this is a beautiful hymn... Showing the hymn writer's desire to see our Lord Jesus and to be close to Him... Das ist schön...
Anyway speaking about seeing our Lord Jesus and being close to Him... One way to know our Lord better is to serve Him by faith... And thus the theme of the conference was "serve by Faith". Maybe let me start my sharing of what I've gained in the youth and young people's conference (3-6 June 2009) with a "flow chart".
Knowing the Will of God -> Serving God (through faith and obedience) -> God is Glorified
When we are first saved by the Lord from sin, we became His servant already... so as a servant, our obvious duty is to serve our master - our Lord Jesus Christ! And in order to serve Him well, we need to know His will, i.e. His likes and dislikes. It's after knowing His heart's desire can we serve Him well... through our faith in Him and being obedient to what He commands us to do... Ultimately, when the people around us see such rare fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control), God can be glorified... Amen... Praise the Lord!
Haha... so now, in order for God to be glorified among ALL men, we as His servants and spokesperson, must live out Christ in our daily living... How then do we do so?? I believe that one very important thing that we must do is to submit to all the authorities that we have... Be it our teachers, the government, our boss, our parents etc... And not only to submit to them when we think they are right (that's actually more of doing what we right rather than obeying in most situations...), we also need to submit to them even if we think they are in the wrong...
Well, you might think that such an idea is crazy... but well, that is when we as His servants can show forth the fact that we indeed have this Christ in us that can help us obey authorities even if they are super demanding and we feel wronged. The reason why we are able to obey them is because we are not obeying men, but rather in all things that we do, we are obeying God. In Colossians 3:23 it says that "And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men". This precisely is what God wants us to do... and God will not shortchange us even if we are wronged.. If we suffer for His name sake, He will reward us accordingly...
And that where faith in the Lord has to come in... When we serve Him by obeying the authorities, we must have the faith and confidence that He will not mistreat us if we are willing to, for His sake, to lose our face (i.e. to suffer loss in pride) or to humble ourselves down before unreasonable authorities. Of course when I say that, it doesn't means to say that if someone of a higher authority than us were to ask us to do wrong things in the sight of God, we should do it. That's where knowing the Will of God comes into play... We need to know what He demands from us and what should our behaviour before Him be in different circumstances... To do all things right in His sight...
And I was reminded of a portion from the bible of what is one aspect of the Will of God - 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks,
for this is the will of God in you"... Yeap, so I need to rejoice always, to pray unceasingly, and to give thanks and praises to our Lord in everything :) Amen!
Haha... I shall end here for now... this conference has definitely much more riches shared to all of us who had attended it... I shall share more if I have the time to...
To God be the Glory! Praise the Lord!
"Rejoice evermore, rejoice evermore! It is better to sing than be sighing. It is better to live than be dying. So now rejoice evermore!"
